10 months old!

Dear sweet little bunny shoo-shoo,
I started writing you a letter a little bit after your 9 month birthday but never finished because we moved to Berlin, Germany and things have been a little hectic, but we made it.


For the past two months the best description of you is BUSY. I imagine that will stay the best adjective for you for a while! Just when I really needed to have a childproofed house I didn't although we are doing better now. Last month you really mastered pulling up on things and then getting back down. Your world really grew at that point and you have not forgotten that when you stand up there will probably be something on that table, or chair, or whatever, that is fun to play with. It was fun to watch you learn to pull up and then get back down. The getting down was a challenge but you finally realized that hey, knees bend! The first several times you would just lean back and let go more and more until you just sort of plopped down on the floor.

There were a few weeks there where you really didn't say too much and I think that is because you were working so hard on getting faster in crawling and really mastering pulling up. You were back to your vocal self pretty quickly though. You really like making the "b" sound and a sort-of hacking, grunting noise that really annoys your dad. He has asked me twice now what I think about this noise and I keep saying I think that you are experimenting with sounds. Or maybe you get a response from that sound. You squeal when you see yourself in the mirror or a picture of a baby and often when you see one of the dogs. You spend a lot of time talking to the dogs. Or sitting in front of the mirror talking to yourself. Or just sitting on the floor with a toy and talking to it. I suppose that another description for you could be talkative.

There are lots of things I have meant to get on video but haven't for different reasons. You love to watch us click our tongues and then you try to imitate by opening and closing your mouth and then that moves into BABABABA. I haven't been able to catch you squealing at yourself in the mirror and it's a challenge now to catch you just talking to toys because if you see the camera then you need to get it! You grabbed the camera strap, which was carelessly hanging off of the desk, and pulled it down once. Luckily the camera didn't land on your head but you were surprised and got a little upset. Almost everything you are going for is dangerous.....

You started being afraid of heights. I noticed this one day as I was playing up in the air games with you and your face had a look of fear I had not seen before! Oh man, you better get used to life in the air, have you met your dad??

You are eating 3 meals a day and you seem to enjoy meal time. You let us feed you but like it better if you can feed yourself. You will eat anything so far....for a while there you wouldn't do butternut squash but I bet you'd eat that now. I don't even know that you have favorites...maybe yogurt and fruit....but you seems to love the veggies too. You are messy but this is no surprise and you have figured out that you can feed the dogs....I thought that would come a little later.....meals are much more entertaining now!

You really enjoy playing chase games and hide and seek. You love to be tickled and bounced on the bed. These things will get you really laughing. You love to sing "the itsybitsy spider." You love Calvin and Jahnimous but only Calvin returns the love. You love to find something on the floor, a sock, paper, rag, dog toy and carry it around. You will crawl a little, sit up, shake the item, put it in your mouth, tell it a story and then crawl a little more and repeat the process. You may carry this item around for 20 minutes. Your are not terribly picky on what the item is. You like bath time and playing with bath toys. You like getting dried off and massage time (until we turn you over to do your back and then you want to crawl to anything you can see on the bed). You love to go for strolls and backpack or ergo rides and you love to be outside. You LOVE to suck your two left fingers closest to your thumb and rub your neck with your right hand. It's the comfort position.

You don't love to get cleaned off after meals or have your nose wiped or suctioned ever. You don't like to get too many kisses when you cleary have better things to do. You don't like for me to change your diaper first thing in the am, but if your dad does it it's ok.

You tend not to be a good napper, so we do a lot of strolling to get you to nap, although the reason this is getting written is because you are currently taking a nap in your bed. You go to sleep pretty well at night, with a 5-10 minute back rub. You get up a bit earlier here in Berlin, more like 6:30 instead of 7:30 without as much play in your crib but I think that will come back once we are really settled.

You continue to be a really happy kid. I say kid now because you tend to have crusty food in you hair or on your face now and if you have a cold you tend to have kid snot coming out of your nose! You are usually covered in dog hair.....I understand why my friend Lisa videos her Roomba more than her kid, I never thought I'd want one of those but it sounds great right now! Dirty or not I still love you to pieces. You are so sweet and loving and funny. You give great, slobbery kisses and do this thing where you in a very sweet way put your forehead to mine and it's just love!
There are no photos here because we have been having A LOT of technical difficulties since arriving in Berlin but that will get better....patience.

I love you so much!
Love,
Mama

Friends.

Dear Calvin,

Thank you so much for your patience with Siler.  I know that you are getting old and we just put you on a plane for 8 hours and moved you to Germany and now, now you have this kid who won't leave you alone.  I am trying to teach her to be gentle but she just knows how to hit and grab.  I'm sorry, I'm doing the best I can.  At least you can look forward to lots of treats under her high chair and soon she'll just feed you whatever she's eating on purpose.  See, it's not all bad!

Made it to Germany!

The German adventure begins!  It has been an adventure for sure.  Most of our first week here has been spent running around to different government office trying to obtain the correct piece of paper but we did get to do one touristy thing this past Sunday.  We went to Schloss Charlottenburg.  This is a baroque palace that is just a few blocks from where we are currently living in Charlottenburg. Yep, we live just a few blocks away from a PALACE.  We did not go in the palace but we did walk around the gardens which are really nice and were a great place to get the dogs on a good walk.  We figured out that we can get into the gardens a quicker way from our house so there will probably be daily dog walks here while we live in this neighborhood.

Apparently this palace started smallish when it was built toward the end of the 17th century as a summer retreat for Sophie-Charlotte, wife of elector Fredrich III.   It is the largest palace in Berlin and the only royal residency in the city dating back to the Hohenzollern family.  Some other royals added on,  one such addition was the Neuer Flugel (New Wing - creative with names, the Germans) which was added on in 1746.  During WWII the palace was damaged a bit but was reconstructed.  I suppose that is the case for most of Berlin.  There was a bit of information around the grounds but most was in German so I didn't get much out of that.  


We walked around the gardens which were pretty cool and I look forward to seeing it come back to life in the spring.  The building at the end of this tree-lined path is a mausoleum that is the resting place for Queen Luise, her husband Fredrich WilhemIII, and the Emperor William I and his wife Augusta.  There are also a few other royals there.

 Calvin and Jahnimous were pretty excited to pose for this photo putting their best side forward! We tried  to turn them around and get a second shot but it looks just like this one.  I love those dogs!  I love them so much I drug them to Germany with me!

 A better shot of the boys with the palace in the background.

The English section of the gardens....

The have some funny looking pinecones here in Berlin!

There are some pretty cool statues around the palace as well

Most of the statues were looking pretty worn down....I guess that is from years of being exposed to the weather.

Siler seems to be settling into German life pretty well.  We don't have a car so we get around by walking and taking trains and busses.  It's been pretty cold here so she stays pretty bundled up when we are out and about.  She is not nearly as bundled up as most of the German babies though.  I think this is hysterical since we just moved from 60-70 degree Charleston to 40ish degree Berlin. The German babies are in prams with hats, coats, gloves AND in a sleeping bag thing.  I have to take layers off of Siler sometimes because she so sweaty and I have to keep her hands out so she can get her fingers in her mouth!  I am thankful for Starr for giving us the stroller blanket.  I had no idea when I was in Charleston how handy this would be.....in Berlin!

So we are here, we are settling in, getting adjusted to city life.  I think that the city life may be more of an adjustment than the we just moved to another continent part of our move.  Berlin is big.  Not as big as London I hear, but WAY bigger than Charleston or Asheville.  

       It takes us hours to run one or two errands because we take the wrong train and end up in the wrong place, or have to find a shop to feed Siler,  or realize later that there was a closer one of those but we just didn't know, or wander around looking for the elevator.  After dragging the baby and the stroller up and down some stairs and escalators several times and wondering how these other moms carried their GIANT prams up stairs, I realized that on the train map it notes if there is an elevator.  Now I look for stops with elevators if I have the stroller.  Since I don't know any of the stops well yet I have to wander around the station following signs to the elevator which seems like not a big deal.  Well, some stations have a few different train lines and different elevators going to the different train lines so it's a little more involved.  One of the funniest moments we've had so far was getting off one train (because we realized we had gone one station to far, so we need to go back one stop) and trying to get to another by elevator.  We found an elevator,  took it up,  walked across a sort of bridge over the tracks, saw the sign for the train we thought we needed but couldn't find a elevator for that, so we carried the stroller down the stairs, looked around and realized that was not the right platform, headed for the elevator, realized we were getting on the SAME elevator, but confused as to how this had happened.  Took the elevator back up,  laughing hysterically,  calmed down and finally found signs to the correct train.  I felt like I was in one of those MC Escher drawings at the time.  AH, the life of the newbies.....

       Here are a few pics of Siler.  She is busy, busy, busy.

Taking a bath in the first place we stayed.  I'm glad they bothered with the tub but it was so small I don't really know why they bothered.

 The washing machine at our old house was in the garage so Siler didn't see it much but was pretty excited to watch the one at our current house.  If I can do a load of laundry while cooking I can keep an eye on her!

LOVES that cute baby in the mirror.  It's in the foyer/hall of our current apartment and while Siler is crawling as fast as she can towards something dangerous she will see this baby and stop to chat.  I love this because it soooo cute and it gives me time to childproof!

Naptime

I heard Siler about 45 minutes after she went to sleep, so I checked in on her and she was sitting in her bed sucking her fingers and looking like she wasn't quite ready to get up so I left her alone and went back about 10 minutes later and saw this:

It looks like she just leaned over to lay down and fell back asleep!  So funny!

8 Months Old!

Dear Siler - You are 8 months old now!  WOW!  For you birthday you stayed at Gammy and Papa's house and learned how to crawl!  Of course it wasn't one of those bright colored toys that are supposed to make you smarter you wanted....it was a lens cap for a camera....Why do the toy companies bother?  You would much rather have a cell phone, shoes, shoelaces, electrical cord.....toys are boring you say!

Siler Crawling

and more crawling

You are getting around pretty well turning on your belly and pulling yourself toward what you want....or you just give up and play with whatever is close.  You will still sit in the floor and play with a toy for 30 minutes or more.  Just a few days ago you played with a laundry basket for a good 45 minutes.  You continue to be pretty content.  Well, except for the last few days....and I think the reason for that may have been that we discovered you have your first ear infection.  Gammy said that your dad got ear infections every time he got a tooth, you just got two.....maybe that explains it?  That really stinks but it is what it is.

Napping hasn't really been your thing lately.  You play in the crib for a while then get bored and fuss and cry about it.  Some days a back rub will do the trick but some days I put you in the backpack and you just hang out while I try to pack to get ready for our move to Germany next month. Here again, I think the teething, ear infection might have something to do with this.....time will tell....

Here you are at the Charleston Marina with some lovely ladies and you dad....

Your dad is standing on the front of a sailboat in this photo....Alle, I'm sorry that I can't remember what the front is called in sailorese.....I think this is a super cool picture!

You are getting the hang of eating.  You really made progress around New Years when you seemed to get the idea of swallowing food, not just pushing it out.  Orignally you like butternut squash but that has not been popular lately, the faces are worth it though!  You seem to like the baby cereal, peas, sweet potatoes, applesauce (I made the worlds most expensive applesauce...it's good but next time I'll buy a jar!) So far you are content to let us spoon it into your mouth.  I have put some food on your tray for you but you aren't that interested.  You are also pretty proficient at drinking out of a shot glass....the sippy cup is fun to play with and sometimes you get some water.....

You had a great Christmas with all of your grandparents and uncle Derek.  And a great New Year with Laura, Katie, Sadie, Alle, Will, Ryan, Rainier, and Rufus.  It was a full house for sure.  You got to meet Vanessa briefly and you got to see Terry Ogawa a few times which was cool.  I think you were pretty bored after the holidays and it was just you and I again all day....sorry....life kid.

I have been trying to get photos of your teeth.  I have a whole bunch of photos similar to these......

Almost.....

SUCCESS!!

Well, I cut off most of your head and your nose is sooooo snotty, but I got the teeth!  I've been trying for about 2 weeks I think...and I do have to give some credit to the fancy camera that takes 3 photos in a row real fast.....

One of my favorite things that you do is make this face and breath in and out of your nose, I don't really know how to describe it but I think there is video somewhere....here is the cute face though....love it!

We are working on waving and signing.  You seem like you make the sign for "milk" when you are getting ready to nurse but I think it just a coincidence.... or maybe you are just really advanced!  We have had some playmates and you love to see other kids.  It's really cool and funny.  You love to look at yourself in the mirror too...and talk and sing....you LOVE that baby in the mirror!

Good grief that's a lot of photos!  Thanks for being such a rockstar baby!  I love you so much and I love that I get to be part of your life and watch you grow....it's really cool.  Here's one more pic....just incase there is any doubt about how cute and great you are.....

I love you soooo much!
Love,
Mama

Learning videos, again...

OK, trying to learn, again, how to post videos - trying Vimeo.....maybe if it works i'll remember how to do this
MOM, you have to click on the link - it will turn blue and be underlined, you have to tap on the link once to get it -  and then push the play button (the white triangle/arrow pointing to the right) - there are two links so there are two videos....


http://vimeo.com/35230342

http://vimeo.com/35229753

ENJOY!

Yet another photoshoot....

The thing about photoshoots is that I can never decide which photo I like best.  Narrow it down to 5 you say....too hard.  Every face she makes is freaking cute!!  So here are a few of my favs...I narrowed it down to 7.

It was slightly difficult to get Siler to look at the camera because she wanted to was paying more attention to the delicious pine straw, leaves, whatever was on the ground.  So we have a lot of photos like this:

 We also have a lot of photos where whoever wasn't behind the camera was trying to get her to look up and smile and she would look over at us with a rather bewildered look.....like this:

"Can't you see I'm busy right now?"

One last shot....look at those legs!!  This was an old dress of mine but I think I was wearing it at about 1 year.....she's 7 1/2 months......

Yay for photoshoots!